


wings

by harinezumi_kun



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-10-22
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harinezumi_kun/pseuds/harinezumi_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a world where people have wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the kite maker

**Author's Note:**

> originally inspired by this prompt from pnutbutterkelly: "ohmiya; keywords: wings, sparkle, paisley" (or something very close to that, anyway). don't ask me how it got to 4000 words, because i just don't know ;p

Aiba flutters when he’s nervous, his sparrow-patterned wings rustling and snapping against his back and letting out little clouds of dusty down. It drives Nino crazy.

“Stop it,” Nino hisses, reaching up to pinch a nerve right above Aiba’s wing-joint, but that only makes the wing flap out to smack Nino in the face.

“Sorry,” Aiba says with a wince, and then again when his wing hits Nino a second time. He fusses with the cuffs of his dress shirt, a hand-me-down that is too short in the arms. “I’m just…nervous.”

“No kidding,” Nino sighs, darting through the crowd with the ease of long practice. “Calm down, alright? We’re just going to see Sho-chan.”

“I know, but…” Aiba trails off, forced to dodge quickly around a speeding hand-cart. He’s having a little more trouble than Nino, being taller and lankier and unused to moving so quickly amidst so many people. “But being here just feels…weird.”

“Yeah.”

They return to strained silence and Nino glances around. The main street in Midtown is crowded day round, with both Winged and foot traffic, carts and smoke-belching motor-cars, but it’s not the crowd that’s making Aiba twitchy. It’s the _looks_ people keep giving them. 

Walking through Midtown is awkward enough on a good day, but in their poor Lowtown excuse for dress clothes it is doubly so. Some of the looks they receive are of disgust, some of pity. The Winged they pass, especially, stare openly at Aiba—Winged Lowtowners are so rare, he’s something of an anomaly, and with his startling shock of sandy-gold hair, he already stands out. Nino wishes they were just back home, among the familiar factory rows where no one even notices them.

But today is Sho’s eighteenth birthday, and they promised they would come. Nino sighs, stiffening his spine and staring straight ahead.

They arrive at Sho’s house a short time later, and it is a relief to duck through the front gate and out of the streets. As they shuffle up the front path through the modest garden, Nino catches Aiba looking around enviously.

While it is a far cry from the palatial residences of Hightown, the Sakurai household is much grander than anything in Nino and Aiba’s dingy corner of Lowtown. The garden is small but well-cared for, with neatly raked pebble paths and rock gardens, and a few low-growing plum trees. The house itself is two whole stories, has a sloping tile roof and real glass in all the windows. The roof and shutters are all painted in the vibrant red that is the family’s traditional color.

Nino has only just raised a hand to the bell-pull when the front door slides open noisily to reveal a flushed and grinning Sho.

“You came!” he says excitedly, grabbing them both in headlocks with no regard for his freshly pressed suit. Crushed to Sho’s chest as he is, Nino takes a moment to appreciate the true hideousness of the paisley necktie Sho is wearing. 

“Of course we came,” Nino says, wiggling free of Sho’s chokehold—although he notices that Aiba allows himself to be manhandled a little while longer. “There’s free food right?”

Sho must be in a really good mood, Nino thinks. Instead of starting in about Nino’s poor manners or something equally boring, the older boy just laughs and says “yes, yes” in his most magnanimous tone.

“Hey,” Aiba says, finally finding his voice, though he’s still a little pink in the face. “Where is everybody? I thought you were having a party?”

“This _is_ the party,” Sho replies, giving Aiba a happy little shake. “We’ll have the formal ceremony in a couple of days, but I wanted to have the real party today, with you guys.”

Despite himself, Nino feels his heart melt a little. Leave it to Sho to throw a party with two kids from Lowtown and his parents and call it the “real” party. What a sap. After slipping off his shoes by the door, Nino slides an arm around Sho’s waist and lets him lead them deeper into the house.

They find Sho’s parents and five-year-old brother, Shun, seated around a low table in the living room. Nino and Aiba greet them with smiles and polite bows. Nino has always liked Sho’s parents—despite the family medical practice making them among the more well-off in Midtown, they live simply and practically, and show none of the distaste for Lowtowners that some of their neighbors do. And, like Nino, none of the Sakurais have wings.

Not that Nino has anything against Winged, necessarily—he’s still friends with Aiba, after all—it’s just that wings are something either earned or bought, and Nino doesn’t have the time for the former or the money for the latter. There’s enough to do just keeping his family clothed and fed, and Nino is fairly certain that wings are something he will never have.

He watches as Aiba takes a seat next to Sho’s mother, a tiny woman who shares her son’s impossibly toothy smile, and sees her pat Aiba’s wings fondly. Aiba is poor like Nino, from an extended family that can barely afford to feed all its seven mouths much less buy any of their children a pair of wings. Sakurai-san’s gesture is an unspoken “thank you”, a constant reminder of the way Aiba earned his wings—on the day Sho fell off a crumbling pier, and Aiba jumped in after him.

They had been young, maybe eight or nine, and they hadn’t even known Sho’s name, at the time. Aiba hadn’t asked for anything in return, but somehow Sho’s family found him, determined to repay him. They had insisted on wings. And while the sparrow’s wings were small, barely long enough to get Aiba off the ground, they were too grand a gift for Aiba to accept—and by the same token, impossible to refuse.

Nino’s musings are interrupted when Sho’s grandmother emerges from the kitchen with a tray full of food, and Nino and Aiba both leap up immediately to help. Sho follows suit, belatedly, with a chagrined smile. Everyone is served a helping of the party foods—sweet dumplings, handmade rice-balls, and other celebratory treats—and poured a drink. Then, Sho’s father raises his glass for a toast.

“To my son,” he intones, voice gravelly with pride, and carries on for a bit about how proud he is, what a good man Sho is becoming, but honestly, Nino isn’t really listening—he’s eyeing the sweets left on the table and wondering if it would be worse manners to just ask if he can take some home, or pocket the extras secretly. Sho’s father finishes his speech and Nino raises his glass automatically, still trying to calculate how much longer he could make the half-kilo of rice they have at home last if he supplemented it with party treats. 

Nino is jerked back to the present when Sho’s father, having lowered his glass, continues.

“And, we have one more thing to celebrate today.”

Nino glances over at Sho curiously, but the other boy is wearing an equally baffled expression. They turn back in time to see Sho’s father pulling out an envelope of thick, cream-colored paper.

“From the Academy,” Sakurai-san explains, smiling. “An acceptance letter, to the medical school.”

There is a moment of stunned silence, and then everyone is talking at once—Sho’s mother and grandmother exclaiming tearily, Aiba thumping Sho on the back with great enthusiasm, and Shun (who is too young to really know what’s going on) bouncing around the table excitedly with a dumpling in each hand. Nino smiles along with everyone else, and manages something inane like “Hey, that’s great!”, but really he’s thinking: dammit. Bad enough that Sho—one of his best friends, though he’d never admit it—is a Midtowner, but now that he’ll be attending the Academy, it’ll be the dorms in Hightown. Where he’ll make lots of new friends, probably. And Nino doesn’t like to share.

Damn, damn, damn.

Luckily for Nino, he’s always been a good actor. He manages to keep up the façade of false cheerfulness through the rest of the meal. It helps that about halfway though, Shun climbs into his lap and starts in on an involved narrative that Nino thinks has something to do with pirates or maybe a dream Shun had—hard to tell, as the five-year-old gets distracted at several points in the story, and when he starts back up again he’s either skipped ahead or switched topics.

But eventually, they eat all the food, Shun falls asleep half-under the table before his mother carries him away to his own room, and Sho’s father heartily announces “Presents!”

From his grandmother, Sho receives a handmade charm for success in his studies (not that he’ll need the help), and his mother gives him a drawing from Shun that appears to be Sho riding (or maybe being eaten by) a dragon. When Aiba hands over his present—a pair of cufflinks he got second hand and spent hours polishing back to their original shine—Nino waits until Sho has unwrapped it and started thanking Aiba before quickly adding “It’s from both of us,” with a little smirk.

That way he just seems like a mean cheapskate instead of like someone who can’t even afford to buy his best friend a birthday present.

Sho just smiles and shakes his head a little before thanking Nino, too, and then turns to his parents expectantly. His mother and father exchange a conspiratorial glance, then Sho’s father rises and asks Aiba to help him with something. Aiba looks puzzled, but follows him out of the room, and when they return they are carrying a large box between them.

The box itself is huge, flat but almost as tall as Aiba, made of expensive, polished wood. There’s a seal carved into the front that Nino recognizes at the last moment and catches up with everyone else’s expressions of awe just before Sho pulls open the hinged doors of the box.

Inside, laid out on deep crimson velvet, is a pair of wings. They are long, glossy and black, obviously master-crafted. Sho looks like he just got punched in the stomach, and Nino feels the last of his false joviality seep away.

“They’re—raven?” Sho guesses, finally regaining his voice. He reaches out without quite touching, letting his hand hover reverently over the sleek feathers. His father nods, and from her seat at the table his mother sniffles quietly.

Somewhere in the house a clock chimes the hour in little silvery peals, and Nino grasps at his sudden chance.

“Oh!” he says, jumping up. “Sho-chan, the time, sorry, I just remembered—I can’t stay, I promised Mom I’d help her with, uh, at the shop today, so…”

Sho blinks a few times in surprise, looking more confused than anything else. “Oh, um. Yeah, okay, but I—”

“Sorry,” Nino says again. He shoots Aiba a quick apologetic glance. He’ll just have to explain himself later. He gives the room in general a quick bow before heading for the door. 

He wasn’t counting on Sho to follow him, though.

“Nino, what’s the matter?” he says, catching Nino by the arm as the younger boy shoves his feet back into his shoes.

“Nothing,” Nino insists without looking up, “I just forgot, I have to—”

“Liar,” Sho says wearily. He crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow.

Nino sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. He’s still having a hard time meeting Sho’s eyes. “Look, I really am sorry, I just wasn’t expecting—all this.”

“Well, neither was I,” Sho returns, a little irritably, “but I would expect my friends to at least be happy for me.”

“I am, but—”

“So happy you just have to leave in the middle of the party?”

“It is not the _middle_ of the party, we already ate and gave you your presents and—”

“That’s not the point!”

“Fine, I’m pissed off, okay?” Nino snaps, glaring, hating that Sho’s temper is getting to him. “It was already hard enough being friends with a rich doctor’s kid, but now you’ll be at the Academy and…”

“So what?” There’s a deep, hard line between Sho’s brows, now, and his eyes are wide and disbelieving. “It’s not like you’re never going to see me again!”

“Yeah?” Nino shoots back. “I guess we’ll see.”

“You’re mad about something that hasn’t even _happened_ yet,” Sho hisses, reluctant to raise his voice. “You’re being stupid.”

“Thanks, that’s really helping me reconsider the whole leaving thing,” Nino deadpans. Sho opens his mouth to retort, but Nino reaches out and grabs his arm, stopping him. “No, don’t, just—I’m sorry. I am. And I will be happy for you. But right now I need to go.”

Sho stares at him hard for a few long moments, and Nino can see the tightness in his jaw that means he’s still angry, he doesn’t get it. 

“Fine,” Sho says at last, exhaling sharply. “See you later.”

“Yeah,” Nino replies listlessly, but Sho is already walking away. Nino’s fists clench in frustration, and he just manages to resist slamming the door on his way out.

He stays on the crowded main road for only a few hundred yards before he decides he can’t stand it and ducks into a small side-street. The few people he passes barely glance at him, hunched and working hard to be part of the background. He lets himself get a little lost in the back alleys, kicking petulantly at pebbles and empty beer cans, watching them skitter away and ricochet off white-washed brick. 

Stupid Sho. Stupid Sho’s parents, too, and stupid Academy, and stupid Aiba since he’ll probably be on Sho’s side and think Nino is being unreasonable. Part of him knows he _is_ being unreasonable, but that makes him feel worse instead of better. A lot worse. 

It’s just so frustrating, and not fair, that it’s so easy for Sho to have all these nice things when Nino has to work himself to the bone just for scraps. It’s not like he wants a revolution or anything, he just wants more than what he’s got. He wants to be able to buy presents for his friends. He wants his mother to not have to work in a dark smoky factory all day. He wants his sister to stop street-walking at night—and he knows that’s what she’s doing, even though she insists she’s not. He doesn’t want to have to worry every day about whether or not there will be enough to eat tomorrow.

He just wants things to be simpler. Easier.

All of a sudden, Nino stops and looks up, and for a moment, he can’t figure out why. He’s not lost, not exactly—behind him and a little to the right, Hightown looms on its cliff, so he knows that direction is north, and to get back to Lowtown he just has to keep going downhill. There’s no one else on the street, no strange noises. Then he turns his head just a little and sees it.

The building is painted a bright, sky blue—he had glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye—and sticks out almost painfully from its brown and beige neighbors. There is a hand-painted sign above the entrance that just says “Aozora”. Beneath an awning with tiles in a deeper blue there is an entrance with a short curtain over the door, but it is almost completely obscured by—Nino steps closer, to get a better look—kites. Hanging from the underside of the awning, different styles and sizes, but all painted in vibrant colors that flash and wink as the breeze swings them around.

Nino walks right up under the awning, studying one of the kites more closely. It’s a fairly standard square shape, but is painted with a delicately detailed scene of a flower-viewing party. Then, just behind the first kite is a smaller, round kite decorated to look like a frog. For a time, Nino just walks around in front of the shop, examining everything in the display and feeling a strange kind of delighted excitement. He’s seen kites before, of course, but nothing quite like this, nothing so well-made and…the only word he can think of is “whimsical”. And now that he thinks about it, he’s never seen a shop that _only_ sells kites.

He glances through the open doors to the inside of the shop, dim against the brightness outside. After only a moment’s pause, he decides to leave his own problems outside and crosses the threshold.

He squints for a moment, eyes adjusting to the shadowy interior. Inside the shop, there are more kites hung on the walls and from the ceiling, and spread out over a few low tables, but no people in sight—no customers, no shopkeepers, no one. There’s a dusty, unused air about the place. The whole building seems sleepy and still.

“Hello?” Nino tries, but there’s no response. 

After wandering around a little—among kites shaped like wide-mouthed fish, kites painted with exaggerated warrior’s faces, kites like miniature gliders, and some like butterflies and birds—Nino finds himself standing in the middle of the room and feeling strangely disappointed. It seems like there’s nothing much left to do but leave, but then he hears a noise.

It’s muffled, from the other side of the door in the back of the room, a scrape and rustle that is distinctly purposeful. Nino follows the sound and, seeing that the door is slightly ajar, decides _why not_?

He pulls the door aside enough to stick his head in and tries another “Hello”, but trails off when he realizes what he’s looking at.

The room is enormous, carved out of what was obviously once two separate stories to leave a cavernous work space. Light streams in from large windows—that used to be doors to the upstairs balcony, Nino guesses—throwing shafts of hazy gold through the frames of the much larger kites hanging from the rafters. Some of them are gliders, Nino realizes belatedly, reaching almost from floor to ceiling, though some are just wooden frames waiting to have canvas stretched over them. There are kite-skeletons hanging on the walls, along with completed pieces that look more like works of art than toys.

Nino’s gaze is pulled back down to ground level when he realizes there is someone watching him. 

Seated at one of the long work tables near the front of the room, surrounded by pots of paint and bits of wood, staring at Nino with half-lidded curious eyes is a young man. He can’t be much older than Nino, but it’s hard to tell through the dusty glow in the room. He is dressed only in a paint-splotched undershirt and loose pants—no shoes—and looks like he hasn’t cut his hair in a while. It’s pulled back into a tail at the back of his head, but most of it seems to have come loose and fallen down around his face. He blinks slowly at Nino, like he’s waiting for something.

“Um…hello,” Nino says again.

“Hi,” the other boy replies, brows furrowing a little. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, no, um, I was just,” Nino gestures back towards the front of the building, “I was just looking at your kites, but there was no one around, so…”

The kite-maker tilts his head a bit. “We’re closed today, though.”

Nino stares back at him, feeling a bit baffled. “The front door was open.”

“Oh.” The boy thinks about this for a moment, then leans back over whatever it is he was working on. “Would you mind closing it for me? I didn’t mean to leave it open.”

Nino stares a moment longer, and his heart sinks a bit at what seems like a dismissal. “I—yeah, sure. Well. Bye, I guess.”

The other boy looks back up before Nino can turn fully away. “You’re leaving?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“You can stay.” He goes back to his work. “I don’t mind.”

While the young man bent over the work table is undeniably strange, Nino feels relieved somehow by the invitation to stay. He jogs back to the front of the shop to slide the doors shut, then returns to the workshop. He hovers in the doorway uncertainly. After a moment, the other boy glances up again.

“Did you want to buy something?”

“Oh—uh, no, I can’t—um…I was just…” but Nino trails off, because he isn’t exactly sure, really, what he’s doing here.

“There’s a couch, if you want to sit,” the other boy says, nodding his head towards a dilapidated piece of furniture in the corner.

Nino hesitates again, then asks, “Can I look around?”

The boy just nods and lowers his head again.

So Nino begins to wander the workshop. He examines stacks of thin, bendy wooden rods, endless coils of twine and rope, piles of canvas and rice paper in different thicknesses. Jars of paint, stain, and lacquer line one wall on a long rickety shelf just at Nino’s eye level. Aside from the sagging couch, the only other furniture in the room is a tiny wood-stove with a couple rusty-bottomed pots on top. Glancing inside—Nino is nothing if not nosy—he finds the bigger pot still half-full of rice, but then slams the lid back down on the smell of rotting food that wafts up into this face.

He glances quickly towards the front of the room, but the noise doesn’t seem to have disturbed the young man, still bent intently over his work. While Nino is kind of annoyed that the other boy let so much food go to waste, mostly he just hopes he hasn’t been eating from it.

Eventually Nino’s meandering path leads him back around to the front of the work room and he finds himself coming up behind the other boy slowly to peek over his shoulder.

The kite he’s working on now is another detailed city scene. This one looks like the docks in Lowtown—busy streets between hulking warehouses, bicycle taxis and foot traffic winding through covered stalls selling fish, vegetables, housewares. And in the corner of the scene the boy is working on now, there is a group of children running down a deserted pier, towards another child, balanced daringly at the farthest edge of the dock.

Nino is smiling when the other boy finally notices him standing there.

“You’re really good,” Nino tells him earnestly. 

“You like it?” The other boy smiles back. Nino nods. “Do you want it?”

“Eh? Oh, no, I couldn’t—that’s, um—” Nino stutters, and glances around the room again, quickly changing the subject. “Do you make all these yourself?”

The boy nods, makes a little affirmative noise. “Sometimes I get help, but mostly, yeah.”

Nino whistles appreciatively. He’s already asked his next question before he realizes it might be a bit rude.

“Do you make a lot of money?”

The other boy just shrugs. “I make enough to buy what I need. I guess I make more than I used to. Jun-kun said I wasn’t charging enough for the quality of work I was producing.” His last words sound awkward, like he’s quoting verbatim.

Nino nods, and there are a few moments of silence. The other boy scratches around at the table, then turns back to Nino.

“Are you hungry?”

Nino can’t help glancing towards the stove nervously. “Uh…”

“There’s this ramen place up the road,” he continues, and Nino lets out a relieved “Oh!” before he can stop himself.

The boy just grins, seeming to take that as a “yes”, and rises to go. Nino hesitates, then follows and sidles up next to other boy.

“Your treat?” Nino asks sweetly, taking a gamble.

The other boy blinks at him. His expression is unnervingly neutral, although Nino thinks he can see the faintest hint of a smirk at the corners of his lips.

“I don’t even know your name,” he says at last.

“Oh,” Nino replies, and feels a sudden, inexplicable rush of shyness. “Nino. Ninomiya—well, people just call me Nino.”

And then the other boy smiles, wide and pleased. 

“Nino,” he says with a nod. He sticks out a hand. “Ohno Satoshi.”

Nino can’t help but smile back as he takes Ohno’s proffered hand. And when he does, something happens, something changes, that he can’t quite put his finger on.

Their hands, he thinks, are a very nice fit.

*

Much later in the evening, when the sun is sitting low in the clouds over the ocean, Nino is back at Sho’s house. He’s standing just outside the door, watching Sho open the thin package Nino just handed him.

Sho looks up, puzzled, but with the hint of a smile. “A kite?”

“Yeah.” Nino scratches the back of his head, looking at the doorframe instead of at his friend. “I know it’s a little weird, but—”

“I like it,” Sho declares suddenly. When Nino finally glances at him, Sho is smiling his full, toothy smile. “I really like it. Thanks, Nino.”

“Nah,” Nino returns, shoving his hands in his pockets and wishing he were better at apologizing.

“Where did you get it?” Sho asks, examining the kite again, more closely. “I’ve never seen one like this before.”

“Oh, well, I just sort of…found this shop today,” Nino says, grinning a little. “I’ll take you there some time.”


	2. true-high

Nino waits three days to go back to the kite shop. Though he’s been thinking about going back ever since, there are several contributing factors to his delay. 

The first—giving a little truth to the lie he told at Sho’s birthday party—is helping his mother around the shop. While she’s away at the factory during the day, Nino busies himself in the small apothecary that takes up the front end of their house, mixing, powdering, filling packets and capsules, and handing out prescriptions to their regular customers. It was supposed to be Kazue’s turn this week, but she hared off with some excuse about a new job at an udon shop across town. Nino just hopes it’s true.

The second reason for his delay is even more annoying: school. Nino was ready to quit going to school three years ago, but his mother would have none of it despite Nino’s fervent declaration that he would never pursue higher education. After a long haggling match, they made a deal: Nino will keep going to school, at least three days a week, until he’s seventeen. Just five more months and he’s free. But for now, he still has to drag himself to the little temple school every couple of days and sit through long, painful hours of literature and arithmetic.

But finally, he has a free day, and he’s up with the sun and with a plan.

He leaves the house before anyone else is awake, with his guitar slung over his shoulder. One of the few things he has ever bought himself, the guitar is getting a bit old and worn in places, but Nino plans to hang onto it until it falls to pieces in his hands. And anyway, it’s not completely frivolous.

After about an hour of playing in front of a dockside bar—where the last customers are just leaving, still fairly boozy and generous with loose change—Nino has enough money to buy a milk bun fresh out of the bakery oven, and a cable-car ticket up to Midtown.

The station on Spice Street isn’t too crowded this early in the day, and Nino manages to get a seat by the eastern-facing windows where he can watch the sun slicing through the clouds as the car rises up and up and up over the city. Fog still crouches thick and heavy over most of Low and Midtown, sending wispy columns of white up around the Hightown cliffs where the electric lights of cliff-face mansions shimmer like little mirages in the mist. The city blocks are reduced to washed-out watercolor shapes, and in the distance Nino can see the long, slender silhouette of a messenger-glider cutting through the fog.

And then, as the cable car is passing out of a connecting station, the slanting sunlight hits just the right angle, and there are rainbows everywhere.

*

The clouds break and melt away as Nino is exiting the station in Midtown at the Rapids. The series of plunging waterfalls below that give the station and the street their name throw up a mist that sparkles in the midmorning sunshine, and collects in Nino’s hair.

As he makes his way up through the terraced streets, Nino lists for himself the things he’s learned about Ohno so far. At the ramen shop, the other boy had seemed perfectly content to sit in silence as they ate, but Nino was curious and in need of distraction. But, despite his efforts at conversation, his list is still disappointingly short. This is what he knows:

Ohno lives alone, in the room above the shop-half of the building. He is an orphan. Nino didn’t pursue that topic—it seemed like it would be rude.

Ohno started learning kite-making when he was five-years-old. He used to sell mainly to people looking for children’s birthday presents or something fun to do for an afternoon, until he met Jun, who apparently got him started selling the kites to higher-class customers. This seems to make Ohno a little sad, as he expects that the higher-class customers hang them on walls instead of flying them. Nino still doesn’t really know who Jun is.

Ohno started making gliders about two years ago, just to try it at first, but then he decided he liked it enough to continue.

Ohno is three whole years older than Nino, which is more than Nino would have guessed, but not enough to be too intimidating. 

And finally: Ohno really likes ramen. The owner of the shop had called him by name when they came in, and gave him an extra slice of pork on top, for free—and Nino, too, which made Nino even happier that he’d decided to stick with Ohno for a meal.

Nino is not really sure why he is so interested in Ohno, but that’s just how it goes—Nino becomes taken with people quickly, and once he’s decided he likes someone, a stubborn part of him becomes determined to make them like him back.

And so, he finds himself back at the kite shop.

He comes at the shop from the opposite direction than last time, but it still sticks out from the rest of the shops on the street, the blue looking fresh and bright in the morning air. There aren’t many people on the street, and the front doors are still closed. Just as Nino is debating about knocking, they slide open, revealing Ohno in a shop-coat that matches the blue of the storefront. He blinks at Nino for a moment, then smiles in recognition.

“Nino,” he says by way of greeting. “Were you waiting?”

Nino pauses in the middle of raising his hand in a little wave. “No,” he says, too quickly, dropping his hand. “I mean, only for a second, I just got here. I wasn’t waiting.”

While Nino is rather feeling like he could happily sink into the ground and disappear, Ohno just grins, and beckons for Nino to come inside.

The shop interior is much brighter today—windows that Nino hadn’t noticed before have been thrown open, and the doors that lead through to the workshop are open as well. When they come up beside a counter with a stool and a clunky cash register, Ohno plucks a rainbow-colored pinwheel out of a jar full of the same and hands it to Nino.

“First customer always gets one,” Ohno says by way of explanation.

“Oh.” Nino takes the little pinwheel and flicks it experimentally. “I didn’t buy anything, though.”

Ohno just shrugs. “You sticking around?”

Nino hesitates, fingering the strap of his guitar. “Is that okay? If you’re busy—”

Ohno shakes his head. “You can stay. If it gets busy, you can—here—” Ohno ducks behind the counter, then comes back up with a short coat to match his own. “You’re hired.”

“Eh, really?”

“Sure. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be that busy today. Business doesn’t really pick up until spring starts, with the Children’s Festival.”

Nino takes the coat slowly, pausing before shrugging off his guitar and slipping into the coat. It’s not until he does that Ohno even notices the guitar.

“Oh,” he says, with an eager smile. “You play?”

Nino just nods as he sets the instrument down behind the counter.

“Maybe you can play me something later?” Ohno says hopefully.

Nino can’t help but smile. “Sure.”

The rest of the morning passes like a ride down a lazy river, slow and comfortable and pleasant. Nino spends most of his time perched on the counter by the register, sometimes playing his guitar, sometimes chatting with Ohno through the door of the workroom. The older boy often wanders back to his workbench to fiddle with something, add another stroke of paint, tie off a string. 

Though they only get about half-a-dozen customers before lunch time, there is still a fairly steady stream of people going in and out of the shop. Some are grandmas and housewives out on their errands, come to check that Satoshi-kun is taking care of himself. Some are neighborhood children, too young to be in school or just playing hooky like Nino, who rumble around the store noisily and inevitably leave with free pinwheels or other treats. Despite the fact that this seems like a regular occurrence, Ohno still looks vaguely bemused to find anyone paying him any attention.

At lunch time, Nino volunteers to cook and Ohno is delighted. There isn’t much to work with, but Nino throws together something like fried rice that Ohno devours with gusto.

When the golden squares of sunlight on the workshop wall have slid most of the way to the ceiling, Nino decides he had better go.

“Will you come back tomorrow?” Ohno asks.

And Nino just can’t bring himself to say “no”.

*

For the next few days, Nino becomes a fixture at the kite shop. Soon, the grandmas are asking after him, too, and the kids have started calling him “Nino-chan” and demanding impromptu guitar performances. During this time, Nino learns his way around the shop and actually gets fairly good at charming customers and making sales.

“Jun-kun will like you,” Ohno says, amused, after seeing off a woman who just bought a kite for each of her ten grandchildren, thanks to Nino. Nino just grins, then remembers something.

“You should meet some friends of mine,” he says, hopping back up onto the counter. “I actually gave that kite you made to my friend, Sho—he loved it. I told him I’d bring him here sometime.”

“Oh,” Ohno says. “Okay.”

For a moment, it seems to Nino that Ohno looks a bit uncomfortable, hesitant, but it’s gone in an instant and Nino shrugs it off.

Later, Nino is in the back room, searching the wall for a piece someone reserved specially, when the light from the window suddenly dims. There is a snapping _whoosh_ and a sharp gust of air that rattles all the kites and gliders, and Nino ducks instinctively, throwing his arms up over his head. A dull thump, and Nino realizes there is someone standing behind him. He rises out of his crouch and turns to find a gangly Winged young man, arms crossed and glaring suspiciously. 

“Are you _allowed_ back here?” the newcomer asks, before Nino has a chance to speak.

Nino feels his shoulders hunch defensively and gives the other boy a quick up-and-down look. Everything he’s wearing seems to be made of silk, or something else fancy, and he’s got a very nice pair of polished, hand-tooled leather boots on his feet. Hightowner for sure, as if the massive wings on his back didn’t give that away, plus the fact that he seems to be wearing make-up and nail-polish. The most bizarre thing, though, is that his wings and make-up seem to all be in a matching shade of deep-purple.

“Purple?” Nino says aloud, and the other boy scowls.

“Indigo,” he corrects, then: “Who are you?”

“Who are _you_?” Nino shoots back. Before things can escalate, Ohno wanders in from the direction of the shop.

“Nino? Did you find the—oh, Jun-kun!”

“ _This_ is Jun-kun?” Nino asks, at the same time Jun says “Nino?” like he finds the word somehow offensive.

“I’m glad you could finally meet,” Ohno continues, though Nino and Jun are already back to glaring at each other. Ohno steps forward to do a proper introduction.

“Nino, this is Jun, Matsumoto Jun. And Jun-kun, this is Nino…um…”

Ohno looks at him, and Nino reluctantly supplies, “Ninomiya Kazunari.”

They bow stiffly at each other, although Jun’s is little more than a bob of the head. He flicks his hair self-importantly, and the strands seem to float gently around his head before settling again. Nino blinks, and turns away, to Ohno who is retrieving the kite that was Nino’s original goal.

“Oh, sorry Oh-chan, I can get that—”

Ohno waves him off. “It’s okay, I’ll do it. You can stay and get to know Jun-kun a little better.”

“Oh,” Nino says, deflating. “Yay.”

“How long have you known Ohno-kun?” Jun asks without missing a beat, still eyeing Nino suspiciously. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Nino clicks his tongue in annoyance and starts back towards the shop despite Ohno’s instructions. “A week, and no, I’m not, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Lowtown, then?” Jun persists, following Nino to the door.

“Does it matter?” Nino asks, glaring again.

But Jun doesn’t answer, just tsks and addresses his next remark at no one in particular. “Ch. I’m gone for three days and he’s already picking up strays.”

Jun isn’t even looking at Nino, and his tone is so ridiculously pompous, Nino decides that’s as much as he’s willing to take from somebody he just met. He raises his fist to give Jun a warning punch in the arm, but Ohno is suddenly there grabbing his wrist and shaking his head urgently.

“Don’t, Nino, he’s—” He cuts himself off and glances at Jun. The other boy, only just realizing what was about to happen, furrows his brows and looks suddenly nervous. But then he just gives an uncomfortable shrug and turns his head away in an attempt at nonchalance.

“He’s True-High,” Ohno continues, lowering his voice. “You could hurt him.”

Nino’s eyes snap back to Jun and all of a sudden pieces are falling into place and he’s noticing things he didn’t see before. Jun’s wings, he sees now, don’t attach near the shoulder-blades like most, but lower down, almost at the small of his back, and even still they must be almost twice his height when they’re extended. Jun’s hair, too, the weird way it floats around his head—not hair at all, but countless, impossibly fine feathers, just a shade darker than his wings. His nails aren’t polished, but thick and dark like talons, and what Nino thought was eyeliner is actually a fine rim of scaling all around his eyes.

“Bird-Bones,” Nino hisses, letting the curse slip from his lips without thinking. He regrets it immediately when he sees the look of disappointment in Ohno’s eyes.

“Ohno-kun,” Jun says loudly into the moment of awkwardness, “why don’t you show me some of the new pieces you’ve been working on?”

Ohno, glances between Jun and Nino, still uncomfortable, but makes a vague noise of consent before leading Jun back into the workroom. Nino is left to man the shop, although the afternoon lull means there are very few customers to distract him. He pulls out his guitar and plucks out a handful of sullen chords, straining his ears for every word that is exchanged in the other room.

At first, Ohno is just showing Jun around. He points out a few new kite designs, and they briefly discuss delivery of a recently finished glider that is so big it will have to go out through the upstairs window. Nino knows the jealousy roiling in his stomach is unjustified—he has no exclusive rights to Ohno, he wouldn’t even if he’d known him for a year instead of barely a week. But it still irks him that Jun, who is obviously an unpleasant person, just has to swoop in through the window to get Ohno’s undivided attention.

And sure Nino feels a little bad about calling Jun rude names after just meeting him, but it’s not like it’s really his fault. True-High are so reclusive, so unusual, that half of the people below lower-Mid don’t even believe they exist, and the other half tell their children stories about how Bird-Bones will come to snatch you in the night if you don’t eat all your vegetables. Nino doesn’t know where True-High really come from, but he remembers hearing that it happens in Winged families after enough consecutive generations of wing-wearers—the bird blood gets strong enough to make something that’s not quite human.

Nino shudders a little at the thought, plays a sour note, and realizes the tone of the voices coming from the workroom has changed.

Jun is speaking low, in hissing whispers, and Nino only catches half of it, but his heart sinks a little more with every word.

It sounds like _“Those kind of people—dangerous—thieving—can’t trust them—take anything from you?”_

“No, of course not,” Ohno answers at a normal volume. There’s a beat, then: “Well…”

“He did, didn’t he?” Jun insists. “What?”

“He didn’t take it. I gave it to him. But…”

“That’s why he keeps coming back,” Jun hisses. “He’s probably just waiting for more handouts. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you to start paying him for sitting around on the counter and playing that guitar.”

There’s more, but Nino doesn’t stick around to hear it. He puts his guitar back in its case, lays his borrowed shop coat across the counter, and leaves without a sound.

*

During the day, Lowtown is a cacophony. Wheels creak as wagons rumble by, harness jingle in time with the hoof beats of the horses, children run shrieking and laughing through the dusty streets. Down by the dock, the air is full of the shouts of hawkers, of ship crews loading and unloading, the snap of sails and rigging, and the groan and thud of cargo coming and going in the cranes.

But at night, there is quiet. Darkness falls like a blanket over the close-packed houses and factories, muffling the noises until they are only a dull murmur. There is hardly any greenery in Lowtown, but nature finds a toehold somehow—crickets still chirp, and night-birds call to each other in the eaves.

From his window at the back of the house, the loudest sound Nino can hear is the rumble of voices coming from the Aiba family’s restaurant next door. The last customers won’t be gone for a few more hours, and the smell of Chuuka cuisine is still strong. This would be frustrating, except that Aiba thoughtfully brought up a plate of meat buns, still hot and steaming.

Nino sits with his arms draped over the railing of his balcony, which is so small it is little more than a glorified windowsill, taking careful bites and trying not to burn his tongue. One window over, and close enough to reach out and touch, Aiba is bent over his latest project, the materials for which he has spread out across his balcony. He says it’s going to be a miniature hot-air balloon, but Nino just doesn’t see it.

“Then he tells Ohno I’m probably only waiting around for more handouts,” Nino is saying to an apparently inattentive Aiba. “So I left.”

“Left?” Aiba asks, without looking up from the mess of wire in his hands.

“Yeah,” Nino says. “Just walked out. I don’t think they even noticed.”

“Well, you didn’t even say goodbye, did you?” Aiba points out, and Nino gives a dismissive shrug.

There is silence for a time, as Nino chews and Aiba tinkers. From a few streets away, the warbling voice of a noodle-cart vender rises briefly over the other nighttime sounds.

“When are you going to take me and Sho-chan to meet him?” Aiba asks eventually, now stretching out a sheet of thin canvas.

Nino raises an eyebrow at his friend. “Were you listening? That Jun kid called me a thief. I’m not going back.”

Aiba lets out his _Oh, silly Nino_ sigh, and looks up briefly. “Seriously? You’re taking this way too personally.”

“It _was_ personal!”

“He just said that ‘cause you’re from Lowtown, right?” Aiba presses on, already back to his project.

“How is that better?” Nino demands. “That just means he thinks _everyone_ from Lowtown is a thief!”

“So he’s probably never actually met anyone from Lowtown, you know?”

Nino just stares at Aiba. “How do you figure?”

“If he had, he wouldn’t say stuff like that,” Aiba says serenely, then glances up at Nino again. “Just like you probably wouldn’t have called Jun-kun ‘Bird-Bones’ if you’d ever met a True-High before.”

“Maybe not to his face,” Nino mutters, but it’s half-hearted. 

Confidant that he’s settled the matter, Aiba goes back to rigging his little balloon. Nino just watches him, taking occasional bites of his meat-bun and letting his gaze drift to the open, low back of Aiba’s shirt and the wings protruding from it. When he’s calm, Aiba’s wings stay neatly folded against his back. This close, Nino can see the even bars of black coloring along the bottom edges of the pinions, and the faint line of scar tissue where feathers meet flesh.

“Has Sho-chan got his wings on yet?” Nino asks absently.

“Yeah,” Aiba replies, this time very pointedly keeping his gaze down. “He, uh. Asked me to come to the—the thing. Ceremony.”

Nino grins, spotting the blush coloring the back of Aiba’s neck. “Geez, confess to him already, would you? All this waiting around is driving me crazy.”

“Shut up,” Aiba mutters, and tries for a punch that Nino dodges easily.

“Has he tried them out yet?” 

“Uh, no. He’s afraid of heights, remember?”

For the next few minutes, Nino laughs uncontrollably, loud enough that the old lady in the house across the street yells at him to keep it down.

“So anyway,” Aiba says eventually. “I still think you should take us to meet Ohno.”

Nino sobers, though he is still wiping away tears of mirth. “But—”

“Ohno’s a nice guy, right?” Aiba presses.

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So if Jun were really horrible, Ohno wouldn’t like him, right?”

“I guess that—”

“Right!” Aiba declares. “Jun-kun probably just isn’t good with first impressions. So we’ll all go meet them, and you can try for a better second impression.”

Before Nino can make any more sounds of protest, Aiba throws his hands in the air with an elated “Done!”

“That’s a hot-air balloon?” Nino asks, looking at the contraption Aiba now has laid out in front of him. At the moment, it looks like nothing more than a napkin tied to a metal ashtray.

“Hang on, hang on, I need to actually fill it with air…”

Somehow, probably with the help of that wire he was using, Aiba coaxes the little canvas bag to stand upright, then sets a short, thick candle in the ashtray and lights the wick.

“It’s just going to blow out,” Nino begins, but Aiba is a step ahead of him. As Nino watches, Aiba produces a short glass tube that fits neatly around the candle, protecting it from the breeze.

“Where did you get that?”

“It used to be a glass for the restaurant,” Aiba says. “I, uh, accidentally broke the bottom off.”

It takes time, but eventually the little balloon fills with enough hot air that it begins to lift, just hovering. Then, all at once, it rises off of the balcony and up into the night sky, floating off down the street as Aiba waves farewell.

“You know,” Nino says thoughtfully. “For someone so dumb, you can be pretty smart.”

Aiba grins. “I know.”

*

It’s raining when Nino shows up at the kite shop with Sho and Aiba, a light spitting mist that is more like being inside a very low-lying cloud than being rained on. Everything is closed up and dark, but Nino was expecting that—it’s a Sunday, just like the first time he stumbled on the shop.

“I don’t think it’s open,” Sho says uncertainly. He’s standing next to Aiba under a large umbrella, holding his back very straight—his long, glossy raven’s wings are still tender where they attach at his shoulder blades.

“He’s here,” Nino says, stepping up under the awning with all its hanging kites. “I thought it’d be better to bring you on a day when he wasn’t busy, you know?”

Aiba is already examining one of the animal-shaped kites. “Wow, these are amazing! Do you think he’d show me how to make them?”

“Sure,” Nino says distractedly. He peers through the tiny crack between the doors, but it’s impossible to make out anything in the dark interior. It’s been almost a week since the day he walked out. He wonders if Ohno’s mad, if Ohno even realizes what happened. Wonders which would be worse. After a few moments of indecision, he turns back to his companions.

“Could you guys just…wait here for a minute?”

Sho looks politely confused, but Aiba grins knowingly and waves Nino ahead. Nino is grateful for the cooperation, but he’s also pretty sure Aiba’s just enjoying an excuse to be alone with Sho. As he steps through the door and turns to close it behind him, he catches a glimpse of Sho reaching for Aiba’s hand, and he rolls his eyes.

With all the windows and doors closed, it’s dark in the shop, and the smell of ink and sawdust hangs heavy in the air. It’s almost eerily quiet. Nino can hear the rain picking up outside and clattering against the roof tiles, but still not louder than his own nervous breathing. Which is dumb, because there’s nothing to be nervous about, this is _not_ a big deal.

“Hello?” he calls out from where he has paused in the middle of the dark store. There’s a beat of silence, and then the sound of footsteps from the back room. Just as the door to the workshop is sliding open, Nino hears another noise—a rush of air, the rattle of the kites against the walls—and he catches a glimpse of dark wings disappearing through one of the second-floor windows. Jun. But his attention is drawn quickly back to Ohno, standing in the open doorway.

It’s brighter in the workshop than in the front room, weak illumination provided by an open window and a few flickering electric bulbs, so Ohno is backlit and his expression hard to see, but Nino thinks he’s smiling.

“You came back,” Ohno says, and something in his voice lets Nino know he was hoping for it.

“’Course I did,” Nino scoffs, ignoring the little burst of elation he feels at knowing Ohno wanted to see him. He wanders casually over to the doorway. “And not—not just for more handouts.”

Nino feels a moment of tension, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up—maybe it just makes him sound too defensive—but Ohno just nods.

“I know.”

Ohno smiles again, and Nino can’t help but smile back. 

“So, um,” Nino says into the moment of awkward silence that follows, “I brought my friends. If that’s okay.”

“Oh,” Ohno says, and Nino sees it again, like last time—that little flicker of uncertainty.

Nino takes another step closer without really meaning to. “What’s wrong?”

“Um.” Ohno runs a hand through his hair, not tied back today. “I just—you said you gave that kite I made to your friend, right?”

Nino’s brow furrows. “Yeah?”

Ohno pauses, watching Nino for a moment, opens his mouth silently a few times before actually speaking. When he does, his voice is soft and almost sad.

“You…you didn’t like it?”

“What? No, no, no—I mean, yes, of course I liked it,” Nino says quickly, waving his hands in front of him. “But it was Sho-chan’s birthday. And I wanted to give him a really amazing present.”

“Oh.” Ohno cocks his head to the side. “So you came back because you like the kites?”

“I came back because I like _you_!” Nino says, giving Ohno’s shoulder a shove. As soon he he’s said it, he realizes how that sounds and backtracks, literally taking a step back in the process, cramming his hands in his pockets. “I mean. I, uh. As a person. Is how I like you. Like a friend.”

“So we’re friends?” Ohno asks, the smile creeping back onto his face.

Nino glances up hopefully. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Ohno agrees.

“And,” comes a loud whisper from the direction of the front door, which Nino does not remember hearing open, “you’re sorry for what you said about Jun-kun!”

Nino feels his face stiffen with annoyance, but does not turn around. “And I’m sorry for what I said about Jun-kun,” he repeats flatly. His ears go a little red wondering how much of this awkward exchange Aiba and Sho were witness to.

Ohno is grinning crookedly at something over Nino’s shoulder—presumably Aiba and Sho at the door—then slides his gaze back to Nino’s face. “That’s good,” he says, “but you should really tell Jun-kun that.”

“Oops, is he here?” Aiba asks, at a normal volume this time. Nino turns to see him opening the front door the rest of the way and pulling Sho along into the shop with him. Sho murmurs a “pardon the intrusion” and props his wet umbrella up outside.

Ohno nods his head in the direction of the ceiling. “He’s probably up on the roof. There’s a ladder up to the window,” he adds, pointing back into the workroom.

“Wait, what—right now?” Nino stutters when he finds everyone watching him expectantly.

“No time like the present!” Aiba says brightly and gives Nino an encouraging push in the right direction, hard enough that he stumbles a little as he crosses the threshold into the next room. By the time he turns around for another protest, Sho has already launched into a round of gushing praise about his kite, distracting Ohno, and Aiba is pointedly ignoring Nino’s pitiful glances. Nino grumbles, hunches his shoulders, and makes his way to the other side of the workroom.

After a few more moments of procrastination, he’s up the ladder and climbing out onto the narrow balcony outside. Once there, he pauses and lets out a startled “Wow”: almost the whole of Mid- and Lowtown are spread out below him. From here he can see the way Midtown advances in stairstep-terraces down to the Lowtown plain, and the cable-car lines zigzagging over it all. In the time that it took to talk to Ohno, the rain has stopped, and the sunbeams that break through the wispy clouds are striking against the wet roof tiles, sending up diamond-bright sparkles. A think band of green—the Royal Parks and Gardens—runs straight down the center of the city, and Nino follows it with his eyes from upper-Low, where it ends at Lotus Pond, backwards up through Midtown and the museum blocks, all the way to the Hightown cliff. When Nino turns to track the verdant stripe that climbs straight up the cliff-face, he catches sight of his original goal.

Jun is seated at the peak of the roof, arms around his knees, staring determinedly out towards the bay. There is another, shorter ladder leading from the balcony up to the edge of the roof, and Nino heaves a dramatic sigh before slipping off his shoes and clambering up to the slippery tiles. Jun watches indifferently as Nino creeps up the treacherous slope, not even offering a hand when Nino finally manages to throw himself across the top ridge of tile. 

Nino arranges himself carefully about an arm’s length away, wiping his hands against his pants and glancing at Jun out of the corner of his eye. Up close, he can see the remnants of the rain caught in Jun’s hair and all up and down his wings, catching the light and glittering like stardust. He can also see the way the damp has soaked through the seat of Jun’s silk pants, how he has his shoes off too, and his hands and feet are grimy from being up on the roof.

“Well,” Nino says eventually. “So. Nice view.”

Jun hums a noncommittal response, his gaze still fixed on the bank of storm clouds rolling in over the water in the distance.

Nino sighs, and resigns himself to a one-sided conversation.

“Look,” he says, keeping his eyes on the landscape. “I shouldn’t have said—what I said, the other day. So, you know. Sorry.”

Nino isn’t expecting a response, so he startles a bit when, after a few minutes of brooding silence, Jun finally speaks.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, “me, too.”

When Nino just stares, Jun continues.

“You heard what I was saying to Ohno-kun, right? That’s why you left?”

Nino shrugs, shifts his gaze around uncomfortably. “Kind of.”

It’s Jun who sighs this time, pulling himself in a little tighter. “I’m not—I’m not very good with people,” he says into his arms.

“Oh.” Nino feels, oddly, like he ought to say something reassuring—Jun just looks so pathetic—but he’s not really sure what would be appropriate, and anyway, this is the guy who called Nino a thief, so why does Nino need to be reassuring him? 

“Being True-High,” Jun says quietly to his knees, “that’s always what people see first. In Hightown they treat me like I’m holy or something. No one will look at me, or touch me, they barely talk to me. And everywhere else is the same, just for different reasons.” He pauses, unbuttons and re-buttons his shirt cuff. “Ohno-kun…he was the first one who just treated me normally. For a while I thought maybe he didn’t realize, but it turned out he just—didn’t care.”

Jun looks up, and Nino sees that his eyes are a brown so pale it is almost golden, like a bird of prey. They should be sharp, fierce, but now they are only sad.

“He likes you,” Jun says. “He thinks you’re funny. Interesting.”

“Oh,” Nino says again. While he’s certainly glad to hear that Ohno likes him, he’s not sure what Jun wants him to say. _Great? Sorry?_

They sit in silence for a time. Just when Nino is beginning to wonder if he can go back inside, the rain starts up again, sudden and cold, but before he has time to be more than surprised, it stops. Or, doesn’t stop really, he just doesn’t feel it anymore. A moment of confusion, and then he looks up to see one of Jun’s wings stretched out above him, shielding him from the downpour. 

“Thanks,” Nino murmurs, and Jun just shrugs in response, making the wing shift and flex. Up close, Nino can see a subtle pattern of light and dark coloring along the primary feathers. 

“I’ve never seen wings like these before,” Nino says, making another try for conversation. “What kind are they?”

Jun glances over at him with an odd expression on his face. “They’re not any kind,” he says finally. “They’re mine.”

And that’s when Nino gets it. The mix of embarrassment and pride in Jun’s voice when he claims his wings, how sharp he was at first and how hesitant now, how protective he is of Ohno. He gets it.

“They’re amazing,” Nino says firmly, looking straight into Jun’s eyes. The other boy blinks in surprise, then allows himself a small, pleased grin.

“I don’t think Oh-chan will decide to stop liking you just because of me,” Nino continues.

Jun’s expression goes guarded again. “I didn’t—”

“So let’s just call it a truce, okay?” Nino interrupts. He smiles slyly. “Although if he starts liking me _better_ than you, well, I can’t help how charismatic I am.”

For a moment, Jun looks like he’s not sure if he should be mad. “You’re kind of a jerk,” he says eventually, settling on a begrudging grin.

“Glad you worked that out so fast,” Nino says. He eases himself off the roof’s peak and starts a controlled slide down the slick tiles. He lands on the balcony with a dull thud. “It’s important to know if we’re gonna be friends.” 

Nino turns to find Jun watching him with another strange expression—almost hopeful. After a moment, the other boy stands and gives a little hop to propel himself up, then maneuvers down next to Nino with a few wing beats. 

“I suppose if Ohno-kun likes you, you can’t be _that_ bad,” Jun concedes, barely pausing before jumping down through the window into the workroom.

Nino feels no remorse whatsoever in neglecting to warn him that a very enthusiastic Aiba would be waiting to meet him.

By the time Nino is back on the ground, Aiba—with Sho’s assistance—is already making a thorough scientific investigation of Jun, who can’t seem to decide whether he’s pleased or offended. Ohno is standing off to the side, smiling quietly to himself, and bumps shoulders with Nino companionably when the younger boy sidles up next to him.

“Thanks, Nino,” he murmurs, though he doesn’t say for what.

But Nino doesn’t really care. He just throws an arm around Ohno’s shoulders and says “You’re welcome.”


End file.
